According to ACT Research’s recently released Transportation Digest, the heavy-duty truck market exploded off the starting blocks at the beginning of the year, with order numbers that build on 2020’s strong close.

“The massive supply-demand imbalance between freight and drivers in the second half of 2020 lit commercial vehicle demand on fire beginning in the fourth quarter of last year. At the start of 2021, commercial vehicle demand is hot,” said Kenny Vieth, ACT’s President and Senior Analyst. “As an illustration, over the past four months ending January, Class 8 backlogs doubled. That period included best- and third-best ever orders for Class 8 tractors in November and December.”

Vieth concluded, “While we are confident that the conditions driving demand should remain in place, what will dictate the trajectory of build, retail sales, and our forecasts will be the industry’s ability to navigate around both traditional and nontraditional supply-chain constraints.”

The report, which combines proprietary ACT data and analysis from a wide variety of sources, paints a comprehensive picture of trends impacting transportation and commercial vehicle markets. This monthly report is designed as a quick look at transportation insights for use by fleet and trucking executives, reviewing top-level considerations such as for-hire indices, freight, heavy and medium duty segments, the US trailer market, used truck sales information, and an overview of the US macro economy.